Daily Scripture
1 John 4:7-12
7 Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. 8 The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. 10 This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins.
11 Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us.
Acts 2:42-47
42 The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. 43 A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. 44 All the believers were united and shared everything. 45 They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. 46 Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. 47 They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved.
Reflection Questions
As John wrote about how Christians treat one another, he likely remembered where he and Jesus' other disciples began. They jockeyed for position, and got angry with one another at times (cf. Mark 10:35-45). So John knew that loving others with Christ’s love doesn’t just spring naturally from warm human feelings. It goes much deeper than just being “nice.” This kind of active agape love comes from the heart of God. The God of the universe loves us—that is the reason we love. The first Christians lived in loving community enabled by the Holy Spirit’s presence. They lived and worshiped together, rooted in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, prayer and sharing as the Spirit kept the risen, loving Christ present with them.
- The power of the Holy Spirit moved the first Christians to share. Acts 2:44 said they “were united and shared everything.” The Spirit gave them the ability to set aside a focus on their own gain to bless others. How does your readiness to live generously, to share with others reflect the Spirit’s impact on your life? An unknown humorist wrote, “To live above with saints we love—ah, that will be glory! To live below with saints we know—well, that’s another story.” But John (and the other Bible writers) said that, in Christ, we need to grow beyond that very human kind of skepticism toward others. Which people, inside or beyond the church, do you find it hardest to love? Read and pray through this passage, plugging in their names and faces. Ask God to help you live out God’s love even toward them.
Prayer
Dear God, you ARE love—what an amazing, mind-stretching truth. You know that it’s not quite as natural for me to love. Please keep loving me as I stretch and grow in my ability to reflect your love to others. Amen.
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Loving each other links us with God - Leawood - Church of the Resurrection
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